In memory of Brad Will, Emilio Alonso Fabian & Esteban Lopez Zurita.

Shot in Oaxaca, Mexico on October 27th by plain clothes policemen. They were standing up against statewide oppression. They were standing for new possibilities.

“one more death — one more martyr in a dirty war — one more time to cry and hurt — one more time to know power and its ugly head — one more bullet cracks the night — one more night at the barricades — some keep the fires — others curl up and sleep — but all of them are with him as he rests one last night at his watch.” –Brad Will, Oaxaca, October 16th

yesterday my friend and fellow media activist Brad Will was killed in service, killed for pointing a camera at injustice, killed for daring to side with the people who were rising, killed in the zocalo of Oaxaca, killed in the midst of possibility, killed on the same day as his companeros Emilio Alonso Fabian and Esteban Lopez Zurita, killed by a police officer in plain clothes, killed with two shots to the stomach, just to make sure, killed so they could say in the media that there is anarchy down there in oaxaca and it’s time to send in the troops. killed so we would question. killed so we would answer: “ya basta” – enough. enough killing. enough lies. enough corruption. enough brutality. enough silence. enough. ya basta!

Brad wrote, in one of his last dispatches:

“what can you say about this movement — this revolutionary moment — you know it is building, growing, shaping — you can feel it — trying desperately for a direct democracy

— it is a point of light pressed through glass — ready to burn or show the way — it is clear that this is more than a strike, more than the expulsion of a governor, more than a blockade, more than a coalition of fragments — it is a genuine peoples revolt — and after decades of pri rule by bribe, fraud, and bullet the people are tired —

you cannot mistake the whisper of the lancandon jungle in the streets — in every street corner deciding together to hold — you see it in their faces — indigenous, women, children — so brave — watchful at night — proud and resolute”

what a beautiful soul Brad was. Always gentle – one of those lanky comfortable in his skin, anarchist media activist types who never had a day job. I met Brad in New York city during 9.11, when we all lived and worked at Indy media, providing one of the only alternative media outlets at a time of intensive spin doctoring. The fridge was always stocked with sushi, a gift from the japanese restaurant next door at the end of each day, no doubt a deal arranged by Brad. there we were, a bunch of skinny media activists surviving on sushi. Not sushi again!

wherever people were rising up, Brad would be there, humbly, documenting, videotaping, writing, sending in passionate dispatches from the inside. I saw him in Caracas this year at the World Social Forum, and on the Zapatista caravan and in Quebec during the anti-ftaa protests too no doubt. he was part of the struggle. he was not an objective journalist, and would make no apologies about that fact.

he had a big open heart, a heart that met you one on one, and a heart that opened to the wider wounds of humanity. He has died, as have so many before him, and more, I fear, to come. But if we take courage from their lives and their deaths, if we are inspired to pick up and carry on their unfinished work, in whatever way each and every one of knows is our own true path, then they will not have died for nothing. I know that would be their greatest wish – that our tears will water our parched hearts and grow into the fruits of action, of possibility, of continuing the great unfurling that is happening around the world, building power from the ground up, not waiting around for someone to do it for us. It can grow inside your own heart, at any moment, when you choose to be autonomous. Choose to be free. Enough is enough. Ya basta!

~ Velcrow Ripper Toronto Island, October 28th www.fiercelight.org

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